


Burn This Place Down to the Ground

by Influenza



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: AU: the 100 take over the arc, F/M, Starting right over from the beginning with this one guys, because i feel like all the shit that went down on the arc just kind of slipped away, just gonna take canon and tweak it slightly with a chainsaw
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-02-06
Updated: 2020-02-10
Packaged: 2021-02-27 20:01:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 5,987
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22591438
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Influenza/pseuds/Influenza
Summary: An AU in which the 100 find out about the plot to use them as guinea pigs on the ground and decide to do something about it.
Relationships: Bellamy Blake/Clarke Griffin
Comments: 6
Kudos: 23





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> I had originally planned to write this whole thing and then post it in stages when I was done, but I keep getting distracted by stuff, so if you want to read more of this, leave a comment and it'll motivate me to keep going! This is the first fic I've ever written.

In the year 2052, scientists living on the space stations scattered above the earth watched in silent horror as the world below them disappeared in fire and smoke. In the days following the complete annihilation of life on earth, they reached out to each other, seeking reassurance and company. They were the last human beings alive. Somehow, the entire world was gone. Gradually, they made plans to connect their various stations into one miniature space city, which they would call the Ark. Maybe one day, the earth would be survivable again, and they could return. Connecting the stations was an incredible feat of engineering and bravery. They were not meant to fit together, were not built to connect, but though they had just lost everything that they held dear, the scientists on board were able to make adjustments to the doors, air locks, and hulls, and the Ark was born. It was a miracle of human persistence as much as it was one of science. In the end, the astronauts had created a farm, a factory, a power plant, and a hospital. They had a government of sorts, and a residential area. It was not very full. There were not very many of them. 

It was many years before the smoke cleared from the atmosphere of the earth below. Things changed over time, on the Ark. Something shifted somehow, in the interactions these scientists had with one another. Their children grew apart, their grandchildren grew apart. Friends became strangers. The government, which had started as a short list of rules posted in the mess hall, grew strict. Life on the ark became wearying, with the cold vacuum of space a constant threat. A prison was created. A one child policy was enacted. One day, the government agreed that any crime committed by an adult should be punished by death. They were running out of room. The oldest citizens became withdrawn and anxious, and sometimes lashed out at guards or council members. They hadn’t meant for this to happen, they kept saying. They had made a mistake somewhere. Their children took them by the hand, embarrassed, and led them back into their quarters. Soon, there was no one left that truly remembered that the Ark had been built by heartbroken scientists, all suddenly orphaned, who wanted to try to make a family out of the people they had left.


	2. Midnight Meeting

Clarke is sitting on the floor of her cell, with her back against her bed. Surrounding her on the floor and walls are diagrams, flowcharts, graphs, some wiped out equations, and some precisely drawn maps. In her hand is a watch which she has been staring at, unseeing, for the last hour. She has been in this cell for over a month, she thinks, based on when they feed her. There is a growing line of tally marks near the ceiling of the wall above her bed.

It’s almost midnight, but that doesn’t matter. Days are not much different than nights inside her cell, and they’re starting to blur together. She hasn’t spoken to anyone other than the guards since she was put here. She hasn’t seen her mother since her father was killed. She doesn’t know how long it’s been since she last slept, but it doesn’t really matter – she never feels rested anymore, regardless of what she does. She’s been devoting all her time to trying to solve the air problem, but she hasn’t gotten anywhere. The solitude might be affecting her mind – sometimes she looks back on the charts she’s made and thinks the numbers are all wrong, but was she wrong when she first wrote them, or is she wrong now? She’s afraid to erase things in case she wipes away something useful, but she’s running out of room. The darkness and the silence are starting to get to her. At least there’s noise in the day, from the other children in the prison. She thinks there must be some kind of common area, or maybe most people share cells. They seem to be friends, mostly. There’s no one in the cells next to her, so she hasn’t been able to talk to any of her fellow inmates. The guards never respond when she talks, no matter what she tells them. She thought, at first, that she could get the word out about the air by telling every guard that came to bring her food, but she got tased the first time she brought it up, and since then only one guard ever comes into her cell. He did talk to her yesterday, for a moment. He had brought her food, stood there as she ate it, and then as he left with the tray, he had told her that visitation day was tomorrow. She gathered from the way he smirked at her that she could expect no visitors. He had just told her to be cruel.

Her thoughts are cut off by a sound at the door – a faint click. In the still and silence of the prison block, the noise seems abnormally loud. She gets to her feet as quietly as she can and stands on her tiptoes to look out of the small window set high in her door, but as she leans against the door, it shifts. Confused, she steps back and pulls slightly at the door, and it opens without a sound. She can see the walkway outside and the cells all the way on the other side of the cell block. None of the other doors are opening. Is this some kind of trap? It seems unlikely that she’s the only one awake, are the guards trying to lure her out or something? She shakes her head to herself, steadying her nerves. She needs to see what’s going on. Even if it is a trap, it will be nice to get out of the cell for a time.

She steps out onto the walkway, and looks left and right. Everything is still. She looks up, and sees the ceiling of the cell block closer than she expected it to be – she must be in a cell near the top. There are 20 cells on the far wall, 10 cells at each end of the block. All of the cells on this top level have solid doors, but looking down, she can see that the cells on lower floors have bars on the front instead of walls and doors. The insides of the cells are shrouded in shadow, shaded as they are from the single light at the ceiling of the block. She is working through her annoyance that the other kids here get to look at and talk to each other, while she is kept secluded in a box away from them, when she hears footsteps on the walkway below her. She shrinks back, presses herself against the wall, but the footsteps are slow – whoever is walking must be trying to stay quiet as well. Maybe someone else’s cell door unlocked? Curious, and not a little eager to see a new face, she moves softly around her level to the opposite wall, and looks down to see a tall, dark haired guard standing at a control unit, hunched down to see the dim display. He seems to be swiping through a list of cells – maybe looking for what is wrong with her door? She crouches down so as to be less visible to him, should he turn around, and observes him. His uniform doesn’t fit him very well, and it looks a little ragged in places. It could be that he’s a new recruit, and they’ve given him the worst gear. His hair is slicked back and shiny. Maybe he thinks this will make an impression on his superior officer. He grunts to himself quietly and taps at the screen, and a door down the walkway from him clicks and rolls open by half an inch. He moves to it instantly and pulls it fully open, and a dark haired girl gets up from her bed and throws her arms around his neck at once. Clarke furrows her brow, confused, and settles down to watch the scene, but her elbow bumps the door behind her, hard. She scowls and rubs at it, and looks to see if the pair has noticed, when from behind her she hears a familiar voice say “Clarke? Is that you?” She spins around and glares up to see Wells, staring at her in surprise from the little window of his cell.

“Wells?” she snaps out in a whisper, “What the hell are you doing here?”

From what little of his face she can see, she thinks he might be grimacing. “Don’t worry about it, Clarke. How are you out of your cell?”

“Don’t _worry about it _?__ Wells, why the fuck are you in prison?”

“I…I stole some food.” He is looking away from her now, down at the floor of his cell. “I was going to give it to a family from Mech station, but… the guards caught me before I could get there.”

Clarke stares at him for several seconds, mouth flat, before spitting out “That’s bullshit.”

“What? That’s what happened!”

“You’re the goddamn Chancellor’s son. You couldn’t have made some kind of… suggestion to the cafeteria staff? Or hell, given them some of the food you already had? Why are you here?”

“That’s why I was arrested. I don’t know what to tell you.”

“Okay, fine, but why are you here?” Clarke is becoming increasingly suspicious, on top of being more than a little annoyed. “Wait, did you get yourself arrested because of me somehow?”

“What? No! Of course not, don’t be…” Wells begins, but Clarke is already shaking her head, rising, and beginning to walk away. Wells calls after her:

“Wait! Clarke!” and not only does she stop walking away but she freezes, gaze locked on the guard who has reappeared on the lower level; his gaze is locked on her. For a long moment, no one moves or speaks. Then the dark haired girl pokes her head nervously out of her cell, says, “Bell?” and someone else on that level loudly falls out of bed. This wakes several people up, and they begin puzzling out the situation in increasingly loud whispers while Clarke and the guard stare at each other, each clearly sizing up the scene as it develops.

“shit fuck shitty fuck fuck shiiiiit.” This from the boy who fell out of bed. There is a muted thud, and then “Jasper I swear to Christ, shut up” comes from his bunkmate, an Asian boy with a thick fringe of hair. “What’s going on out there?” Comes from a cell a level farther down, a bit louder than really necessary. The boy who spoke moves to the front of his cell, and in the moment she glances over Clarke can see long brown hair and a handsome face – the spacewalker. Even farther down the cell block, two girls have woken up and begun talking to each other, one drowsily explaining what she thinks is going on, and then, from a cell just a few down from the one the guard had opened, a voice drawls “listen, dude, I’m not sure what you’re doing here, but if you let me out of my cell for a while I won’t report you in the morning.” This is when the guard turns away from Clarke at last. The boy who spoke last has a sharp, cunning face and is leaning against the wall of his cell. The guard appears to be weighing his options, and then he says “Okay, I’m opening everyone’s doors, under one condition: you all have to stay quiet. There could be other guards walking around outside, and misbehaving in prison is an easy way to get floated when you turn 18, so getting me in trouble will get you just as dead as it’ll get me.” Then he turns to the monitor on the wall, taps at the screen for a while, and cell doors begin opening.

Thus begins what may be one of the quietest parties ever. Every now and then someone else would wake up, and those nearest would explain the situation the best they could. Clarke can’t really be bothered to pay very much attention to the other kids, though, because she is in a heated argument with Wells. The instant the cells started opening, she rushed down the stairs to ask the guard (Bellamy, he says, and probably not a guard, she is realizing) to not open Wells’ cell, but by the time she had gotten there Wells was already out, and at this point she may start actually screaming if he doesn’t explain some things. Bellamy is standing near them, looking increasingly frustrated as the discussion escalates.

“Just stop. There’s nothing you can say that’ll persuade me you just _happened_ to get arrested, on accident, when you’ve never broken a law in your life, and there’s nothing you can do to make me forgive you for getting my father _murdered_.” they are gathering an audience of quietly rapt delinquents.

“No, that’s not… that’s not why I’m here.”

“Then why the fuck are you here??” Clarke is almost shouting now, and even those who weren’t paying attention before wince a little at the noise. “I don’t accept that you just followed me into prison for no reason.”

“I can’t tell you, Clarke.”

“Then get the fuck out. Tell the guards that you’re ready to go tomorrow, I’m sure your dad will get you out immediately.”

“Clarke…”

“No, you went to prison because you wanted to, I’m sure you can get right the fuck back out of it. I mean, who else is your dad gonna use to spy on the other council members, if you’re in here? You just get in close to people, get their trust, and then rat them out the instant they try to do anything GOOD, you fucking ASSHOLE.”

“HEY.” Bellamy has had enough of the yelling, apparently. He steps between Clarke and Wells with a furious look on his face, and Wells, looking like he might explode if he doesn’t get this out, snarls “They’re sending you all to earth.”

There is absolute silence for a moment, and then an explosion of noise. A wide, sweeping glare from Bellamy cuts the conversation down to frenzied whispers, but he still looks decidedly uncomfortable. Clarke wants to sit down somewhere, to figure out what’s going on, and what to do about it. Around her, the conversation is swirling as rapidly as her thoughts.

“I can’t believe they would do that, how could they just….” “…can’t wait to get rid of us, of course, can’t believe it took them this long honestly…” “Why not just fucking float us, be really efficient about it…”

Clarke is conscious of her breath getting faster, and she tries to focus – how long do they have? They must not know whether the ground is survivable, or they would be sending everyone down…

“…all I fucking did was take some painkillers it’s not like I killed a man…” “We’re all gonna be floated right now if you guys don’t shut up.” “there’s no way he knows what he’s talking about” “…couldn’t survive earth in a million years even if it wasn’t fucked down there, I was always horrible in earth skills…”

Clarke’s head is spinning faster; she feels dizzy and lightheaded. She is jostled slightly by the crowd as she thinks - will there be any trained personnel with them, to help them hunt and navigate? Will they be given tools or weapons? The Ark can’t normally spare much of anything; with resources as tight as they are…they’ll probably be down there with nothing. She can hear her heart thudding in her ears, combined with a high pitched ringing

“…all of us, or does he mean…” “…down there, won’t be able to…” “…mom’s not going to let…” “…I don’t understand, what’s…”

Clarke needs to go, needs to sit down alone for a while, but as she tries to break free from the crowd, several people converge on her, hurling questions at her like stones

“You gonna get yourself out now, Princess? You and Wells just gonna leave, and watch us all die on earth?”

“Tomorrow’s visitation day, talk to your mom, tell her I can’t go down there, I can’t, I don’t _know_ anything”

“You know why they’re doing this, don’t you? You were always in and out of those meetings, you better tell me what’s going on…”

Clarke is trapped. She is certain that if she runs, or even backs away, the more aggressive of her questioners will give chase, but if she stands and does nothing it might end badly as well. Trying not to betray any of the panic she is feeling, she peers through the crowd until she finds Bellamy standing on the opposite side. She marches forward, and the people around her let her pass, seeming surprised that she isn’t running away. Her mind calms somewhat, reassured by their reactions. She strides over to Bellamy and catches him by the arm – he glances around, then breaks off what he’s saying and organizes everyone into a messy circle. Once the circle is established, there is a beat of silence, and then many people begin speaking at once. Bellamy steps forward, and a hush falls as suddenly as the noise began. Clarke is beginning to be truly impressed by the sway he has over the rest of the group. Bellamy scans the crowd and picks out a young girl - she looks like she’s about 12, and she seems terrified.

“Yeah, uh…Charlotte? Go ahead.”

“hi. Uh, sorry. Can we live on earth now? I thought it was gonna be irradiated for another like, 50 years?”

Bellamy looks at Wells and Clarke, so Clarke steps forward. She might as well tell them what she knows – they’re all in this together, anyway.

“Hey, everyone. As far as we know, earth is still irradiated, but I have a decent idea why they’re doing this.”

“You mean aside from how much they hate us all?” This comes from the sharped-faced boy from earlier – Murphy. He gets a mild chuckle from the oldest members of the crowd. Clarke smiles weakly, then launches into her story.

“So a while ago, my dad came back from engineering really upset. He wouldn’t tell me what was going on, but I listened in on his arguments with my mom and I could tell there was something wrong with the Ark. Then, about a week later, he told me: we’re running out of air.” There is an outbreak of confused, angry murmuring at this, and she lets it go for a bit while she gathers her thoughts before resuming. “He had been checking and double checking everything for that whole week, trying to find some way to fix the problem, but he wasn’t getting anywhere. He wanted to tell everyone on the Ark, to see if anyone had any suggestions and so everyone could prepare for what might happen, but the council wouldn’t let him. He and I started working together to figure out a way to get the word out – we were going to try to broadcast something so everyone would know – but the council found out, and my dad was floated. They put me in here so I couldn’t tell anyone.” Several of the delinquents are looking at her with strange expressions on their faces, and Wells is looking carefully out at the crowd, away from her. There is another outburst of people talking at once.

“So I guess they aren’t gonna tell our parents about this until we’re already dead on earth”

“Why not send some fucking guards, they’ll have a way better chance of surviving down there with how much food they get”

“No way, man, how are they gonna control everyone if they get rid of their guards? I wouldn’t be surprised if they were recruiting right now: they’re gonna need the fucking manpower when people find out...”

“There’s just got to be a better way of finding out whether we can live on earth than sending a bunch of starving children to fucking die there, what are they thinking?!”

“You don’t get it, they’ll just be happy to have us gone. No one on the ark gives a damn about us anymore. I’m gonna wreck as much shit as I can before I go, though, so this is a useful time after all.”

“Shut the fuck up, Murphy.”

The threads of conversations are rushing through Clarke’s head, making it hard for her to think again. Even with what she knew about the air, it’s hard for her to believe that her mother would send her to die on earth, or that the council would think that sending children to earth is really the best way to find out if the planet is survivable. She needs to know more about what’s going on. With an outline of a plan in her head, she raises her voice above the crowd, earning another disapproving look from Bellamy.

“HEY! Sorry.” Everyone is staring at her, or, in Bellamy’s case, determinedly glaring. “We need to find out more about what’s going on. We’re not even sure whether this is true – I, for one, am not going to take the information at face value.” Wells turns away, trying to hide the look of pain on his face, and Clarke resolutely ignores him. “If it is true, we should try to find out as much about earth as possible. And we need to decide whether or not we want to go.”

Bellamy scoffs loudly. “What makes you think we have any choice, princess? You just going to politely ask them to stop?”

“Actually….” The asian boy from before looks around, then stands up. “I know someone who might be able to stop the shuttle, if we give her enough warning.” His bunkmate, Jasper, claps him on the back. “oh shit, yeah, Raven can do that for sure.”

Clarke speaks up again. “I need to spy on the council. They’re probably meeting right now, they had been holding sessions every night before I got sent here.”

“There’s no way you can do that” says Bellamy, shaking his head. “You shouldn’t leave tonight – you shouldn’t leave at all. You’re supposed to be in jail and everyone knows it. I’ll go.”

“You can’t. I’ve been in the government quarters way more than anyone else here, and – is it May now?” he nods, expression tight for a moment. “I know the door codes for this month. They lock the doors for night meetings, you’d need them.”

“So give the codes to me. You’ll put everyone in danger if you leave here. You think they’ll accept you got out on your own and none of us noticed?”

Clarke thinks fast. “They might be in the section that needs fingerprint scanning, since it’s the most secure.” And she has to go, has to see for herself if her mother is going to send her to her death, has to see how much time she has left, has to know...

“Fine, Princess.” Bellamy interrupts her thoughts. “But if you get us killed I will never forgive you.” A few of the delinquents are sharing uneasy glances.

“Hey, listen. I’m just as vulnerable as all of you. I’m going to be careful. I want what’s best for everyone – that’s the whole reason I’m in here to begin with. I’m not going to let you guys down.” She hopes.

Bellamy looks at her for a few seconds, then turns to face the crowds and says “Alright, everyone back into your cells. If anything goes south out there, we want stuff in here to look as normal as possible.” There are some momentary grumbles, but everyone obeys. As people are filing up the stairs and into their cells, he turns to her, crosses his arms, and says “I’m coming with you.”


	3. The Council

It is just past midnight now, but Clarke had said that was good – the most secret meetings are late at night. Which figures, for a shady pseudo-democratic government. It’s textbook. The problem is that they’re in the skybox, which is really not close to government headquarters. It’s conveniently located as far from the busiest parts of the Ark as it can get, probably in the hopes that the rest of the Ark will forget it’s there if it’s not something they pass every day. Which, Bellamy reflects wryly, pretty much worked. In any case, getting to the Government-Science complex is going to be a bitch. The guards that had been stationed around the skybox are still blessedly asleep from the concoction he gave them earlier, but they were drinking heavily enough before he got there that hopefully they won’t remember him when they wake up. 

Passing the agricultural station is the hardest part of the journey. There are four guards on Agro all night, because of the possibility of someone sneaking in to steal food. Luckily, they have a path to walk instead of a single post to stand in, and they rotate out the paths so they stay alert. This leaves a window of about a minute every 10 minutes. It’s not a lot of time to get down the long hallway, especially since they have to stay quiet, but they make it: Clarke going in front at his signal, with him walking by her elbow and glancing behind him every five seconds or so. 

At last, they get to Go-Sci. It probably isn’t as complicated as it feels when you’re used to it, but Bellamy has been in here maybe 10 times in his life and feels like he’s navigating a maze as he follows Clarke through doorway after doorway. There are fewer hallways here, and some larger rooms were partitioned off into a few smaller rooms. The most commonly used rooms, those for public conferences and court hearings, are accessible from a hallway, but apparently the secret meeting room is at the end of what feels like an eternity of partitioned rooms, most of which require a key code. Looking over Clarke’s shoulder, Bellamy can see that many if not all require a different code, and is suddenly grateful that she’s there. Even if she could have written all the codes down, it would have been hard to figure out which one went to which door. Every time a door opens, though, he curses the fact that he brought her, because he feels sure that one of these doors is going to have a guard behind it. She seems to pick up on this, because after the sixth door they pass through, she rolls her eyes. 

“There aren’t going to be any guards, relax. What would they say to them, ‘please guard my secret meeting, but don’t ask me what it’s for or listen to it, and hey, also don’t tell anyone there are secret meetings’? There are only a few people on guard staff they trust enough to talk about stuff with, and I bet they’re all in the meeting if they’re awake right now.”

He huffs and nods his head, but can’t help continuing to tense up every time a door opens. Finally, Clarke stops in a room that looks like it’s used for storage and holds up her hand, listening. There are muted voices coming from next door. She moves slowly to the corner and squats down behind some shelves, pointing to a vent by the floor. He squats next to her as she twists out the screws, which go out easy. She looks practiced at this, like maybe she’s listened to meetings from this room before. The thought comforts him a little. She tilts the grate against the wall and removes the air filter from behind it, which seems about twice as thick as the normal ones are – probably for noise insulation, although he wouldn’t be surprised if the government quarters just wanted extra filtered air. The voices are much easier to hear now, and he hunkers down in front of the opening to listen. They are sheltered from view by the shelves; they should be alright here as long as no one is specifically looking for them as they exit the room. He focuses his attention on what the voices are saying. 

“…focus for a minute on how we’re going to avoid blowback from this.” The voice belongs to Thelonius Jaha. “If anyone sees this happening, or suspects that something has happened, we may have riots on our hands. Ideas?”

Marcus Kane speaks next. “We could stop all visitation to the prison, send the prisoners down at night.” 

“An outbreak of some kind in the prison complex would do it. The flu, maybe? That would explain the sudden stop in visitations.” This is Dr. Abby Griffin, Clarke’s mother. He glances at Clarke, who is kneeling close to him and is extremely tense, her eyes on the floor. 

“That would also serve as an explanation for why they aren’t allowed to see bodies, if any of the kids die.” 

“Very well,” says Jaha. “We should begin to spread the word of a possible outbreak to make the progression natural. When the word is out, I’ll instruct Commander Shumway to restrict the guard patrols inside the prison. We want as few people to know about this as possible, at first.”

“We need to talk some more about where we’re trying to land them.” Bellamy thinks this might be Councilmember Cole speaking, but he can’t be sure. “I still think our target should be closer to Mount Weather.”

“We can’t risk them impacting the structure of the bunker. If they crack the cement, it will compromise the integrity of the whole thing.” 

“Yes, but if they die of radiation before they arrive at the mountain, we’ll never know if it’s still intact. We need a backup plan in case the surface isn’t livable, we –"

“If the surface isn’t liveable, this will all have been for nothing.” Dr. Griffin states, voice calm. 

“We can get valuable information either way, if we put them close enough to the mountain to get in before they die. There are different levels of livable.” 

“We won’t have the same technology inside the mountain that we have up here. We could run out of food if we can’t farm on the surface.” 

“That’s a problem that has to wait until we get down there. All we know now is that we can’t stay up here,” Jaha says, and turns the conversation in another direction. “How far have we come on clearing the shuttle for launch? Kaplan, have we brought in any engineers?” 

“Not yet, sir, but I myself had several years of training as an engineer. I’ve been running the shuttle’s diagnostics and can’t find any problems. It looks sound from the outside, but to be safe I’ve scheduled a Hull maintenance check for that area of the ship this week. I’ll make sure the engineers check it specifically while they’re out there.”

“Just make sure not to draw too much attention to it. We don’t want anyone checking up on it again in the coming weeks.”

“Right. We could do more if we had full run of engineering, but I’m guessing we won’t get there before the launch.”

“Not with Reyes still there. A friend of hers is one of the hundred.”

“We’ll just have to make do with the tools we have. Any other items to discuss?”

“How is far has Reyes come on the wristbands?” 

“She should be done by tomorrow. I told her to make 150, so we should have some we can actually use in medical – that way she won’t be suspicious when her medical alert devices aren’t being used – but it means it’s taking a little longer than it would otherwise.” 

Kane speaks up next, saying “We need to think seriously about the possibility of a cull. It may be some time before we get good information from earth, and there’s a good possibility that the earth is still toxic. We should have a backup plan. If we cull the elderly and sick…”

“There aren’t enough of either of them to make a substantial difference in the stats.” Dr. Griffin interjects. She goes on “A cull has to be the absolute last resort. In the case that it’s necessary, we could ask for volunteers…”

“No, we need to make sure we have enough trained workers to keep the ark running. This has got to be calculated, which is why I think we should start working on it now. Focus on expertise first, and then mental and physical health. Popularity might also be a useful metric, to avoid unrest…”

Dr. Griffin interrupts again, “That’s too many variables, Marcus. We can’t score people like that, we need to stay simple. We can always reject a volunteer if they’re too important, and if there aren’t enough volunteers, then we start making selections.”

Jaha speaks up “We need to avoid riots at all costs. The last thing we want is a situation in which needless deaths occur or the ark is damaged before we can get to earth. It’s getting late – we should adjourn for the night and take this back up tomorrow. Kaplan, let me know when the wristbands are done, and Abby, start spreading the information about a possible outbreak in the skybox. We need to move this as fluidly as possible in order to avoid suspicion.” 

There are murmurs of assent, and then the scraping of chairs and the shuffling of papers. Bellamy is concentrating so hard on hearing the last bits of any conversation that might be going on that he forgets the situation they’re in until the door down the room beeps and the bolt clicks loudly. Beside him, Clarke startles, clearly having been absorbed in surveillance as well. Before the door can open, he crowds Clarke into the corner, trying to shield as much of her from view as possible – his borrowed guard uniform will blend into the dark much better than her blonde hair and light shirt will. The position they’re in puts their heads very close together, and he can hear her breathing quicken as the door swings open. Thankfully, it opens out into the room, blocking them from view, and with the meeting over, the councilmembers seem eager to get back to their quarters. Bellamy goes as still as possible and tries to calm his racing heart. In front of him, Clarke is breathing faster and faster, and someone will hear, so he shifts a little until he can touch her shoulder. She jumps and looks up at him, and her face is much nearer than he thought. “Breathe” he mouths silently at her, and begins to take slow, deep breaths. She furrows her brow, then nods once and looks back down at the floor. After a minute, her breaths grow more measured, matching his. When the door swings shut, he finally allows himself to relax for a moment. Clarke takes a deep, shuddering breath, and he looks up to see her face flicker between outraged and terrified, and finally settle on determined. When she finally looks at him, he feels something in his chest shift strangely. Slowly, he disentangles himself and rises, then helps her to her feet as well. She drops his hand and braces herself against the wall, gathering her thoughts. He leaves her to it and stoops to replace the vent and filter. When he rises, she is looking at the wall to the meeting room as though staring through it. After a moment she says, at some volume, “Fuck.” Bellamy ducks his head, chuckling. He looks back up with a wry smile on his face and says “What now, Princess?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Again, if you're interested in reading more Please leave a comment, it'll give me motivation!


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